Senate Democrats say they'll push hard this year for a single, state-administered health plan to cover all Californians.

Democratic Senator Sheila Kuehl (KYOOL) says legislation will be introduced next month to provide health care services for all, including millions of uninsured, using the current spending for government health programs and new taxes as funding. Cut: Sheila1 (:15) “And each person and each business would pay into that, so it’s a very streamlined system, everybody would know where the costs come from, where the money’s going, very unlike the current non-system.” Kuehl introduced a report by the Lewin (LOO-win) Group that says replacing the current system of multiple public and private insurers with a single plan would ultimately save about eight-billion dollars its first year. A spokesman for the California Association of Health Plans says members will wait to see the bill, but that on recent universal coverage proposals, individual health plans stood on both sides of the issue. SOC